The Conference on the Decade of the Oceans, organized by Unesco, has concluded with the Barcelona declaration, in which the international community is asked to defend the seas against pollution and warming, and to apply practices that avoid overfishing. About 1,500 people (expert scientists, oenagés, representatives of the private sector) took part in this meeting, which was above all a place of exchange to practically adapt the scientific disciplines to a better management of the seas.
The document highlights the need to “understand the global distribution and impacts of marine pollution on human health and ecosystems” with a focus on land and sea, including the identification of priority pollutants and those that are emerging and are not regulated.
An urgent problem in the oceans is the expansion of dead zones, with little oxygen, which are the result of the excessive growth of aquatic plants due to excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) used as fertilizers. Loss of habitat and biodiversity are some of its feared effects. And now there is the alarm over plastic dumping, the subject of a complex negotiation to agree a global treaty in progress. And in addition, the discharge of hazardous, toxic, bioaccumulative and persistent substances continues to poison the sea.
The text focuses on the risks and threats posed by overfishing and establishes as a priority the means “to achieve a sustainable management of industrial fishing”. At the same time, he points out the need to “promote fishing and small-scale aquaculture” with equally fair, resilient and equitable criteria.
Françoise Gaill, vice-president of the Ocean and Climate platform, like many other scientists, considers it necessary to even “stop all fishing subsidies”, especially those aimed at industrial fishing, because they consider it the most “dangerous” for to this lasting handling.
Sergi Tudela, director general of Maritime Policy of the Generalitat, has reiterated in his interventions the need to “bring science to fisheries management” and has given as an example the fisheries co-management committees organized in Catalonia, in which the scientists participate with criteria of equality with other sectors in this objective. Marine ecologists such as Guillermo Ortuño have called for regulations in view of the high impact of certain fishing gears, such as bottom trawling (which destroys ecosystems) or industrial longline (which kills species without an established limit that are not the initial target of caught but accidentally killed, such as turtles, seabirds or sharks).
Barcelona’s final declaration deems it a priority to promote ocean economy projects that are at the same time “resilient to the climate, so that priority is given to those that integrate environmental conservation with socio-economic benefits for local communities”. And for this, he understands that it is necessary to have a better knowledge of climate impacts; for example, better understanding deep-water ecosystems. In addition, countries must also “rapidly scale up” mitigation actions (gas reduction), including through “marine renewable energy” resources.
Equally, it is considered necessary to evaluate with technical, ecological and social criteria the potential impacts that the proposed initiatives to eliminate marine carbon dioxide may have. Among the possible methods are the addition of minerals to increase the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere or the initiatives of oil companies that present projects to store it in the seabed.
The document calls for “significantly increased investment” in the field of ocean sciences. And he does not forget to remember that it is necessary to “significantly increase the funding and specific resources allocated to the actions of the UN Decade of Oceans”.
